Tips to Find the Best Co-location Providers

Tips to Find the Best Co-location Providers

With the gaining popularity of the advantages of Co-location servers, there is even more availability of a host of colocation service providers. However, the challenge is to strike a deal with the best of the colocation providers to be able to address all your IT requirements demanded by your business. While all the service providers offer a host of services, the best would be able to address all the pain points that your business is facing relating to IT infrastructure necessities. And if you are at the juncture of choosing a colocation provider, the following pointers will help you identify the best from the lot.

Check out the IT requirements of your company

Before choosing a colocation provider, it comes as an intelligent move to identify your IT requirements so that you can match these with the services that are promised by a service provider. A well-informed move of pinpointing all the services that are needed by the data center provider will help your IT administrator adopt a holistic approach towards the selection.

Delving deep into factors such as the colocation environment, the IT admin should enlist the hardware requirements alongside quoting all the peripheral components that would be required. When all the requirements are clearly brought to the table, it becomes an easy task to strike a deal with the provider, not only for the present but also to turn the association into a long-standing business prospect.

The Location of the Data Center

The second important pointer to select the best Colocation provider is to find out about the location of the data center. This is one of the best practices followed by IT admins, attaching significance to the geographical location of a data center. Going by the strong influence the geographical conditions have on the progress of a company, it is important to choose a provider who will help you wriggle out of weather changes. A provider who can insulate your data center against the risks of unforeseen exigencies like cyclones and storms can be your top choice.

A Co-location provider should be able to shield your server from hindrances like network latency while offering to provide disaster recovery services. Tagging your business continuity with weather is thus a good move to enjoy uptime and service availability at all times and seasons.

Delve into the Level of Uptime

The level of uptime that can be offered by the Co-location provider is the next specific that demands attention. It is hence the prime responsibility of your IT administrator to probe into the current level of uptime offered by the prospective service provider. Your uptime is your ticket to progress when a downtime can cost you a lot of money.

Given the fact that the data center design does not impact the uptime, it is only with human interference that things can go out of control. Mismanagement on part of the data center provider can cost you a fortune. The 100% availability of electrical and mechanical systems leads to system uptime which can work in your favor. Hence, it is important to ask relevant questions to the provider so that he will be able to provide you with substantial proof about how downtime instances were tackled in the past. The IT admin should specifically pose questions about all the challenges the provider faced and what was done to overcome such situations.

How Strong is the Facility Maintenance of the Provider?

The IT admin should question the capabilities of a Colocation provider in offering robust facility maintenance services. Checking whether the data center is subjected to constant maintenance as part of its effective management, the IT administrator should select a provider who can ensure the proper upkeep of all the facilities including cooling and power requirements.

A mindful service provider who is aware of the thresholds of various components can become your first choice. Calling for a great deal of presence of mind, a service provider who lives in the present can do a good job to avert an outage. Thus, it goes without saying that a proactive provider will attract your attention and lead you to sign up a long-term, mutually beneficial IT contract.

Pricing Issues

It is the responsibility of your IT department to sign up with a Co-location provider who can manage your data center in the most cost-effective manner. Looking into the pricing policies of the provider can help you identify hidden costs and expenses that can bun a hole in your budget.

Data Security – A Non-Negotiable Feature

It is another tip to attach prime importance to the security of your data. It does not make sense to opt for a data center which does not guarantee data security. Hence, the IT admin should pose questions to gain insights about the security mechanisms that are in place. Culling information regarding digital surveillance tools and firewalls which safeguard your data from unwarranted users accessing your Co-location setup can help you make the right choice.

A Provider Who is Good with Data Recovery

Another feature that will help a Colocation provider stand out from the rest is linked to his data recovery capabilities. If your enterprise thrusts a great deal of importance on data recovery, then it will be an intelligent move to sign up with a Co-location provider who is a data recovery specialist.

Trust – The Human Characteristic that Speaks Volumes

The good invariably makes noise. You will be able to identify a Co-location provider who has been there and done that since long, while garnering goodwill from his existing clientele. A successful track record marked with reliability and consistency in offering Co-location services will make up a good provider who can eventually become your asset for life.

Conclusion

There is no dearth of Co-location solutions that are offered by many service providers. But the trick is to pick the best one out of the lot. And such a provider should be able to offer you cost-effective services and business continuity through uptime; the pointers in favor of a good colocation service provider.